I love the most recent comments plugin.

It saves me hours of trawling through posts to see if I have had any comments on blogs dated from years / months ago.

There are other plugins I haven’t tried any others as this one was recommended.

This plugin does flag up almost ALL comments as out of context though.

Maybe I need to change something in the settings.

Thanks

James

LOL! I’m sure you can find something of value to put in your sidebar. :D

The point of these articles is to get us thinking and talking about what is MOST important to put into our blog’s design. If they are important, move them into important design positions. If they aren’t, and you still want them, then put them in less visible places. If they are distracting and really not working for your readers, then remove them.

I’ll also be talking about how to add these to your WordPress Administration Panels if some of these elements are really important to YOU, the blogger, so you can still have your gadgets and gizmos without confusing or irritating your readers.

Stay tuned. I have a lot more WTF clutter to cover. :D

hmmm…I am starting to run out of things on my sidebar. I have a feeling when I am finished reading all the WTF Blog Clutter posts, I might have a single column blog, without a sidebar. :-/

And you learned a valuable lesson. For some, these are space wasters. For others, they are valuable to their readers. Serve them, and you both win.

However, do remember that the complaints of a few do not represent the whole. You have to use your best judgment to determine which design elements work for your blog and your readers.

And this is a blog. You are never too late to the conversation on my blogs. The door is always open. Come on in. Have a cup of tea, put up your feet, and stay a while. :D

They also complained when I removed iMood and Twitter: “But this is how we know what’s up with you when you’re not posting!”

Always interesting, often surprising, what readers like.

I noticed your gravatar wasn’t working too. Those who have had the same problem found out they didn’t have the correct email address registered with “gravatar.com”.

Slap my hand! I know better than to use abbreviations without explaining what they mean. :)

Slap my hand again! I fixed the CommentLuv “check box” I didn’t know that was poor blog etiquette. See, that’s what I like about you, you teach me these things.

Good thing I’m reading your book. It’s helping to make me blog darn smart.

I noticed that my gravatar wasn’t showing up in your blog’s comments. Wonder why?

By MRC, you mean Most Recent Comments, for those not up on the jargon. :D

If the excerpts made sense and were stuffed with keywords that would help those visiting your site, then great. But if they are stuffed with things like nice, well done, good work, and babble, then who cares to read them.

I also noticed that you have CommentLuv pre-enabled on your blog comments, a no-no for blog etiquette. Even Mark Jaquith, the developer of the first similar Plugin, Subscribe to Comments, finally got the point and has made his Plugin unchecked by default. People want control over how things work and letting them choose to subscribe or enable anything puts the power in their hands, and you don’t get the server and bandwidth load if they don’t want it, but they don’t uncheck the box.

I think that seeing the author’s avatar/gravatar in the comments is fine, even if they see it repeatedly. They like seeing the faces of who they are talking to – or at least their representative image, but not in the Most Recent Comments list. That’s a smart move there and good point.

Because of my blog’s topic I find that people are interested to hear other people’s opinions on the blog’s posts which in turn keeps the conversation going.

So even though it’s not the most prominent feature on my blog design, my stats show that lots of people do click through the MRC list.

Having said that, it is important to remember that, as with most things blog, what’s good for the goose isn’t necessarily good for the gander.

I use MRC with gravatars. I get what you’re saying about the excerpts. My readers like seeing their “pictures”, so for now (after reading this) I’m experimenting with just leaving the gravatars and their names up. It looks “cleaner”. I also checked the box to delete my gravatar when I reply to comments. (I don’t need to see my own “face”.) I’m hoping it creates a win-win. I show my readers I appreciate their comments, and they get name recognition.

As I’ve stated in the article, if these design choices are MOST important to your blog, put them out front and center. If they aren’t, then reconsider them as design choices.

And it seems like both of you and Megan are using the most recent comments panel instead of your Comments panel for some reason. Maybe you like the view from your blog instead of the Administration Panels.

Something to consider, as I mention in the article, is whether your readers use them the way you do. If they don’t, then they are only for you, so consider pushing more important blog navigation elements up and those down lower. If they are, then make sure they are at the top of the list.

Now, if the comment section was full of garbage, I might feel differently.

My blog isn’t just about me talking. It’s a conversation, and that’s the way I want it. “most recent comments” is as important as “most recent posts”. If my commenters were like the ones in your example, maybe I would feel differently, but by and large they all have something interesting to say.

Secondly MRC tells other people where the conversation is going on. Because my blog, like most blogs, has a basically reverse-chronological structure, sometimes the conversation is going on still on an older post than is at the top of the page. MRC makes other people aware of that.

And fwiw, when I’ve tweaked designs and taken away MRC, that’s been the most complained-about thing I’ve ever done.